Political Quotes

“Madam President, it is very hard to find, on occasion, common ground in Washington. Of late, it has been hard all the time. There is one thing on which Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree: there is no more important issue before Congress than to prevent a catastrophic default on our debt. Default would put our economy in grave danger, and that is a gross understatement. I have said it, so many of my Republican colleagues have said it, and the business community is shouting it from the rooftops. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said this about averting default-- he is not known as a great liberal or outstanding Democrat, but he is known as a great businessman. He said: While the current government shutdown is unfortunate, the impacts of a debt default would be magnitudes worse and should not even be considered a viable option. The economic damage associated with default or near default would be severe and have serious consequences for the recovery of the U.S. and global economy. That was amplified the last couple of days by Christine Lagarde, head of IMF, who says this is just awful for the world economy. The world economy affects us. We affect it. No country in the world affects the world economy more than we do. We are going to affect it in a very negative fashion, which will have tremendous negative consequences for us. There are some Republicans in Congress threatening default, even elated that we are going to have one, saying it doesn't really matter.…”